SUMMER OF '66

In the August 2006 Texas Monthly article on Charles Whitman (“96 Minutes,” by Pamela Colloff), Shelton Williams is a character in the recounting of the Whitman tragedy. Shelly was there when the shooting started, but it was not his first encounter with the young man who weaken so much havoc on that hot August day in Austin in 1966. While Shelly and Charlie did know each other, they were not friends and they were not adversaries at the University of Texas in the spring and summer of 1966. They were just two guys with troubled families, personal insecurities, and challenged young marriages. Summer of ’66 is not about Charles Whitman and it is not about why the two young men took such different paths. It is memoir about life at UT, about a mystery man, and about a young man and woman who faced a changing and dangerous world in a courageous way. Charles Whitman is simply a character in this true story.